This invention relates to an impact printer system and more particularly, to a compact and transportable impact printer that imprints information on multi-sheet NCR (no carbon required) traffic citations.
Information on traffic citations are typically handwritten by the officer onto multi-sheets of preprinted carbon paper. The officer must be careful to depress the paper properly so that the officer's markings are imprinted on all the citation sheets.
Drafting citations are time consuming as the officer must fill out the form completely. Also, if the officer makes a mistake, the paper must be completely redrafted further increasing the officer's time to process a citation.
One possible method of imprinting citations is to feed the relevant information into a computer, and then to download the imputed information to a printer. Impact printers would be a preferable method of imprinting the downloaded information onto citations.
However, impact printers must be sized properly to align the citation form properly. A citation form size is regulated by the state. Most standard width citations are wider then the forms most compact printers print on. Consequently, portable and compact impact printers are not presently available to imprint most state citation forms.
Further, available printers tend to cut the edges of the multi-sheet forms making the forms unworkable. Many impact printers have touch sensors which detect the amount of paper under the printers print head. When printing multi-sheets, these sensors tend to interrupt the movement of paper through the printer. Further, these sensors may tend to curl or wrinkly the citation.